Fourth General Convention - United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Buffalo, New York, 1886

Portrait of the participants at the Fourth General Convention of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America held in Buffalo, New York, in 1886. The convention opened August 3rd. Peter J. McGuire is seated at the center in the front row, behind the two delegates seated on the walkway. Two black delegates attended the meeting and both of them are seated in the front row. One is L. E. Rames, secretary of a black local in Charleston, South Carolina, and elected Fourth Vice President of the union at the 1884 Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. In "The United Brotherhood of Carpenters: The First Hundred Years," Walter Galenson argues that the convention held in Buffalo was the fifth Convention of the union, not the fourth. He also claims that the name of the black delegate from Charleston is L. Z. Rames. Walter Galenson, "The United Brotherhood of Carpenters: The First Hundred Years," Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1983. Accessed November 20, 2014 at books.google.com/books?isbn=0674921968 For complete collection information, visit the full finding aid at http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/139